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He was a man of rare praise, except when it “L’Amiral on Thai Lap Thanh. La Tour d’Ivoire on 5
came to his first trio of children. After the war, Tran Hung Dao. Paprika, with the best paella and
he’d been banished to a New Economic Zone sangria. I always used to go to those restaurants.”
for five years, and his mistress had gone to his “Not with me,” Mrs. Ly said. 20
wife, demanding money. Until then his wife had “What do you want to do tomorrow?” Mr. Ly Viet Thanh Nguyen
been ignorant of the mistress’s existence, and asked Vivien.
she responded to the discovery by fleeing the She refilled his glass from the bottle of
country with her children on a perilous boat Australian merlot and said, “I left it blank on
trip. Mr. Ly learned of their flight in the middle of my schedule. I always leave a day or two for
his sentence and sank into depression, until his surprises.”
return to Saigon. Life must move on, his mistress “Can we go to Dam Sen?” Hanh asked. Phuc
said, so he had divorced Vivien’s mother, made nodded vigorously.
his mistress the second Mrs. Ly, and sired three “What’s that?” Vivien refilled her own glass.
more children. He often compared Phuong to “An amusement park,” Phuong said. She was 25
her absent namesake, which had cultivated in drinking lemonade, as were her mother and
Phuong both a sense of yearning for this sister brothers. “It’s not far from here.”
and also some undeniable jealousy. A weevil of “I worked at one when I was sixteen,” Vivien
envy resurfaced nearly every day of Vivien’s visit, said. “That was a crazy summer.”
for her father was behaving completely unlike “We can save Dam Sen for later,” Mr. Ly said.
himself, as if he were competing to win Vivien’s “Since you’ve seen where your sister works, let
approval. Without questions or criticism, he me take you on one of my tours tomorrow.”
followed Vivien’s plan for visiting temples and “One hundred percent.” Vivien raised her
cathedrals, shopping malls and museums, glass, using the classic toast he had taught her.
beaches and resorts, south through the Mekong He clinked his glass against hers, gazed on
Delta, west to Vung Tau, north to Da Lat, and, his sons affectionately, and said, “Yours is a
within Saigon, from the dense, cacophonous lucky generation.”
alleys of the Chinese quarter in Cho Lon to the “I wouldn’t say we were so lucky,” Phuong
glamour of downtown’s Dong Khoi, where Nam said. 30
Kha was the most expensive restaurant on the “You’ve never appreciated what you have.”
boulevard. Her father waved his hand over the meal, and
“This is like the Saigon of the old days.” Mr. Ly Phuong squeezed her glass, bracing herself to
smiled fondly, gazing on the restaurant’s velvet hear the stories of her parents one more time.
drapes and marble pillars. During the war, he “You want to talk about bad luck? After the
had owned a shoe factory, a beach home in Vung Americans abandoned us and the Communists
Tau, a chauffeured Citroën. Photographs from sent me to the labor camp, we lived on roots and
3
that time showed a dapper man with pomaded manioc. There were worms in the rice, which
2
hair and a Clark Gable mustache. Now, as far as was mostly water. People caught dysentery or
Phuong could tell, he wore his sadness and defeat malaria or dengue fever like the common cold
in a paunch barely contained by the buttons of and just died. It was amazing we had blood left
a short-sleeved shirt one size too small for him. for the leeches.”

2 This is a reference to Rhett Butler, one of the protagonists in 3 A root vegetable similar to the potato that grows in tropical
Gone with the Wind. In the 1939 film version, he was played by climates. In a dried and powdered form, it is more commonly
actor Clark Gable. — Eds. known as tapioca. — Eds.
23
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